[kirk]

The FlySpy, when not being directly controlled, goes on it's own initiative pass, separate from yours. If you give it a flight path and it's about to hit something, it's going to happen on it's turn, not yours. You can delay and wait and see what's going to happen, then take control, but if you're going to do that, there's no reason to let it go on it's own in the first place. When the drone is operating autonomously, it's Initiative is it's Pilot + Response (6 dice) and it goes on it's own turn:

Oddly, I agree with your facts and disagree with your conclusions. Perhaps it's that I spent waaaay too much time in earlier years doing recons and raids.

Issue command: enter the next room by 3 inches and hover, wait for further instructions.
(enters)
Issue command: slow pan, left to right, then back. Repeat till further instructions.
Watch screen. If empty, enter room where flyspy is. Not empty:
Issue command: Move to [that spot] staying within 6 inches of wall, pivot to watch room.
Get ready to enter, knowing how many targets there are, where they are, and what I plan first/second/third/...

Total delay: two combat turns, maybe. Six seconds to have full situational awareness of what's in the room before I enter. MAYBE, if the bad guys hit their percept roll, they know something's up because they see the drone -- and if they do, I know they do and can act accordingly.

[kirk]

I'll give you the EVO Orderly, it's a nice piece of machinery. It's also Medium-sized (little bigger than a large dog). I used the Azzie Crawler to show a small-sized drone that you could easier pick up and take with you if you have to high-tail it out of there.

So I can pick up another heavy object, or I can order something that can outrun a troll (accel 5/20, top speed 40) to follow me. Oh, and I can order it to hold onto something for me while it and I are getting out as quickly as possible.  And if I'm really thinking I can jump into the bed and tell it to evac immediately -- a command it understands as basic programming. (Get patient to emergency medevac point for ambulance docwagon pick-up.) I only have to intervene if I need to direct the route, and that's still issue command: Go thataway. Turn right at that (mark on ARO) intersection. etc.

My basic point stands: I don't get why most non-riggers don't pick up some inexpensive but very useful drones to help them do their jobs better.

[Bull]

My basic point stands: I don't get why most non-riggers don't pick up some inexpensive but very useful drones to help them do their jobs better.

There's no reason they don't.  I've seen several players do this.

There's also no reason to have a dedicated hacker, when one or two skills and a little nuyen gets you someone almost as good.  Or hell, just get a decent Agent or three.

And that right there is a HUGE beef I have with SR4's Hacking and Rigging.  There's almost no reason to play a dedicated character of either "class", because even if you do, if anyone else in the group decides to branch out, they're stepping right on your toes.  Pisses this old Decker right off, because the Matrix used to be fun, if complicated (And I still say that most problems with SR1-3 Decking was simply lazy GMs and players, but that's a whole other discussion).

Now?  Boring.  Lame.  ANd they get their dicks stepped on all the time by the face or the sammy or even the fraggin' mage.

Bull

[FastJack]

The FlySpy, when not being directly controlled, goes on it's own initiative pass, separate from yours. If you give it a flight path and it's about to hit something, it's going to happen on it's turn, not yours. You can delay and wait and see what's going to happen, then take control, but if you're going to do that, there's no reason to let it go on it's own in the first place. When the drone is operating autonomously, it's Initiative is it's Pilot + Response (6 dice) and it goes on it's own turn:

Oddly, I agree with your facts and disagree with your conclusions. Perhaps it's that I spent waaaay too much time in earlier years doing recons and raids.

Issue command: enter the next room by 3 inches and hover, wait for further instructions.
(enters)
Issue command: slow pan, left to right, then back. Repeat till further instructions.
Watch screen. If empty, enter room where flyspy is. Not empty:
Issue command: Move to [that spot] staying within 6 inches of wall, pivot to watch room.
Get ready to enter, knowing how many targets there are, where they are, and what I plan first/second/third/...

Total delay: two combat turns, maybe. Six seconds to have full situational awareness of what's in the room before I enter. MAYBE, if the bad guys hit their percept roll, they know something's up because they see the drone -- and if they do, I know they do and can act accordingly.

Or you can use a Complex Action and remote control the drone. 1 Combat turn. This is what I'm getting at. And to do that, you're going to want to make sure you can Command it without problems.

I'll give you the EVO Orderly, it's a nice piece of machinery. It's also Medium-sized (little bigger than a large dog). I used the Azzie Crawler to show a small-sized drone that you could easier pick up and take with you if you have to high-tail it out of there.

So I can pick up another heavy object, or I can order something that can outrun a troll (accel 5/20, top speed 40) to follow me. Oh, and I can order it to hold onto something for me while it and I are getting out as quickly as possible.  And if I'm really thinking I can jump into the bed and tell it to evac immediately -- a command it understands as basic programming. (Get patient to emergency medevac point for ambulance docwagon pick-up.) I only have to intervene if I need to direct the route, and that's still issue command: Go thataway. Turn right at that (mark on ARO) intersection. etc.

My basic point stands: I don't get why most non-riggers don't pick up some inexpensive but very useful drones to help them do their jobs better.

The Evo is a Medium drone. It might say it has a bed, but it's not going to be able to carry you anywhere:

Medium Drones (Body 3): Medium drones range from large dog to human or motorcycle-sized. They are unable to carry an adult metahuman, though they could potentially carry a child or small dwarf.

[CanRay]

As I've complained quite often, I've never played Shadowrun.

But Droids were damned useful in my Star Wars games.  And what are Drones but primitive and really stupid Droids?

[FastJack]

Listen, I'm not saying that having a drone or two for your average runner isn't a good thing. But you gotta make sure that the benefits to it outweigh the negatives. And those are going to be on a case-by-case scenario, with different players liking different things. As a player, I could see having a drone or two (might even add them to Mercedes), but you gotta make sure that if you do have them, you get the best use out of them.

[CanRay]

The best use I get out of a BusyBudy is a nice, clean floor.  After I load it with Cleaner-Cleaner-Cleaner!

Even if the place isn't mine. 

[kirk]

but you gotta make sure that if you do have them, you get the best use out of them.

And that, I think, is the crux of our disagreement.  You think if you can't get the max from it, don't bother. I think getting even 25% is great so long as it lets me do something useful that I can't do otherwise is worthwhile.

[FastJack]

but you gotta make sure that if you do have them, you get the best use out of them.

And that, I think, is the crux of our disagreement.  You think if you can't get the max from it, don't bother. I think getting even 25% is great so long as it lets me do something useful that I can't do otherwise is worthwhile.

Glad to see we agree to disagree on this.

[Crash_00]

But, you didn't account for that one Troll guard that's leaning against the back wall. The drone flies toward him, but it's brain is registering an obstacle, so it has to roll it's 6 dice to see if it has the sense to fly around the obstacle [Dog-Brain's Common Sense (6d6.hits(5)=3)]. It's a pretty savvy drone, so it knows not to fly into the guard and flys around it.

I really don't think that standard object detection and avoidance should be considered a truly unexpected or novel situation. Having done a lot of work on bots for various games, we have pathing technology now, that a standard 2072 rating one dog brain should put to shame, that can easily avoid obstacles that aren't on its path.

I always took unexpected to mean things more like completely wrong blue prints, being attacked (if its not a combat drone), or trying to ram a target (since its obstacle detection should be blatantly screaming "NO"). I know their dumb brains, but having them be that dumb when technology has advanced so far is unrealistic.

[FastJack]

Drones are as smart as you make them. If (as in my example) you tell it to follow the edge of the room based on the blueprints you have, and it runs into an obstacle like that, the "Common Sense" threshold would be a 1, so it should succeed on the test with 6 dice in its pool. If the blueprints are completely wrong, then the threshold to follow the wall would be upped to 2 or 3 as the Pilot tries to figure out if you intended it to follow the flight path you told it, or to alter the flight path to follow the wall.

I also don't think drones would be that much farther along. Remember, the drones in 2070 are now stuffed with sensors and rigger adaptations and such so they don't have to think more. Instead, in the future, they are trading off increasing the drone's intelligence for better direct control by the user. I'd probably say that in regards to today's dog-brains, they are more intelligent, but we could also list our present equipment as having Pilot 1 ratings.

[kirk]

Drones are as smart as you make them. If (as in my example) you tell it to follow the edge of the room based on the blueprints you have, and it runs into an obstacle like that, the "Common Sense" threshold would be a 1, so it should succeed on the test with 6 dice in its pool. If the blueprints are completely wrong, then the threshold to follow the wall would be upped to 2 or 3 as the Pilot tries to figure out if you intended it to follow the flight path you told it, or to alter the flight path to follow the wall.

I also don't think drones would be that much farther along. Remember, the drones in 2070 are now stuffed with sensors and rigger adaptations and such so they don't have to think more. Instead, in the future, they are trading off increasing the drone's intelligence for better direct control by the user. I'd probably say that in regards to today's dog-brains, they are more intelligent, but we could also list our present equipment as having Pilot 1 ratings.

Wait.  Avoiding objects is a standard task for vehicle maneuvering, something that should be built into a level 1 brain much less a level 3, and you want it to make a test?

How often do cabs and commuters have wrecks in your world, anyway? How often do aircraft tumble out of the sky due to bad piloting? They're driven by the same brains, after all.

Look, I'm going to insert real world here for a minute. I've been involved at a low level with computers since my first boards in 1978. In 1982 I was one of the people saying all business computers needed was 48K -- and we were right. That isn't to say I'm the biggest geek on the board, it's to give background for the key point.

I've watched the improvement of computers and seen what's happened in just the past 30 years. Using that as a guide, the drones in Shadowrun actually seem a little on the stupid side.

Every rule-of-thumb measure we use has been "this doubles in that amount of time." Exponential growth, not linear. Theoretical limits keep getting pushed back as they're reached in practice.  An iPhone G3 has more processing power and more memory than a Cray I, an iPad outdoes the 1985 Cray 2, and both do what was theoretically impossible back in 1985.  We do things in cheap games today that were, well, science fiction less than a generation ago.

Let me finish by coming back to the dog brains. Did you know that all modern jetliners have dog-brain that can land at a modern airport in bad weather?  The tested but not yet trusted "autopilot" can taxi, take off, get to destination, land, and taxi to gate without incident. (Taxi tests not done where idiots on baggage carts can get in the way. Yet.)  Google's gotten permission from a state or two to do LIVE tests with robot-driven cars on interstates.

The shadowrun drones are probably too stupid in relation to where reality will be. And then you insist on making them even stupider by saying a system - an advanced system (level 3 pilot), would have to make a test to see if it would avoid a stationary obstacle in the flight path.

[FastJack]

I'm just saying that the dog-brains we have now would be, at best, a Rating 1 Pilot. We've only just now gotten a car that can park itself. I figure in 15 years, we might have cars that drive themselves (and another five years until we trust them).

I think a Rating 3 Pilot would be pretty smart, to the point where it would recognize the troll and fly around him without being noticed. But you would still have to do a test since it falls outside the parameters of the instructions given to it. As is says in the book:

Pilots are computer programs, and so take their commands literally—sometimes too literally. If the gamemaster feels that a command falls within a gray area or is simply too convoluted, he can roll a secret Pilot + Response Test for the Pilot to see how well it comprehends the order, basing the threshold on an appropriate difficulty level.

So, either you give it some basic commands (fly around the perimeter of the room and report back) and allow it to make judgement calls on its own; or you give it more complicated commands (fly around the room, maintaining a distance of 2" from the wall, avoiding all obstacles so as not to be seen and counting all "live" targets in the room). Either way, you're going to have to do a Piloting test. In the former, only if something "out of the parameter" happens, or, in the latter case, to make sure the drone understands the commands correctly.

Now, yes, I'm saying you have to make the test, but remember also that the DM sets the threshold for the test. In most cases, you'll only need a single success to complete it and the 6 dice pool in a average drone's Piloting test should be more than enough and it will succeed. But I cannot say that it will automatically succeed, unless the DM allows you to buy hits.

[kirk]

Except you're the one who wanted to give it that order to circle the room and count objects. I didn't.

All I wanted it to do was go into the room and pan so I could see what was there through its camera. 

For what it's worth, of the instructions you just gave, the one that would have tripped a test from me as GM was "count the live targets". Let's see, there are two ficus, a couple of begonias, and is that mold on the wall one or millions?

As a very minor change of topic, I've been considering the drones and I have a new one to add to the list, but only for the combat guys who can afford a tacnet: the Lone Star iBall. While it's not really much of a deal off the shelf (at 1500¥), it has EIGHT capacity slots. You can pack it with enough sensors and channels to be valid for part of a TacNet 4 -- if you brought more of these things. They're about the size of golf balls - give them gecko tips and stick one to each shoulder for when you haven't got time to toss them in first.

[JoeNapalm]

Good discussion, but I have a very short answer (for once  ):


Because that's the Rigger's job.


No reason my non-Rigger can't do it, but even at ¥2000, that's more than I want to spend on something that another teammate should be covering.

If my Merc wants to go into the next room, the Mage or the Rigger should be using their abilities to check it out (if available for the task) so I can be covering the door. If they're not...no big deal, plenty of low-tech visual clearing options...but if they're not actively doing something to help the team move forward, they should be.

-Jn-
Ifriti Sophist